My barometer, intended for ascertaining the height of the chief botanical stations, soon became a pretext for attacks on the gourd of rum. “Quick, the barometer!” some one would exclaim every time that a remarkable plant was pointed out, and we would all press round the gourd, the barometer coming later. The freshness of the morning and our walk made us appreciate these references to the barometer so much that the level of the tonic liquid lowered even faster than that of the column of mercury. For the future it would be wise to consult Torricelli’s tube less frequently.
The temperature grew colder; olive and ilex disappear, next vine and almond, then mulberry, walnut, and white oak; box grows plentiful. We enter on a monotonous region, stretching from the limit of cultivation to the lower edge of the beech woods, where the chief plant is Satureia montana, known here as pébré d’asé,—asses’ pepper,—from the acrid smell of its small leaves, impregnated with essential oil. Certain little cheeses which form part of our provisions are powdered with this strong spice, and more than one of us casts a famishing glance at the provision bags carried by the mule. Our rough, early expedition had brought an appetite, nay, better still, a devouring hunger, “latrantem stomachum,” as Horace wrote. I showed my companions how to still this hunger until we came to [[183]]our next halt, pointing out a little sorrel with arrow-shaped leaves, springing among the loose stones, and to set an example I gathered a mouthful. There was a laugh at the notion. I let them laugh, and soon saw one busier than another gathering the precious sorrel.
While chewing the acid leaves we came to the beeches, first large solitary bushes, sweeping the ground, then dwarf trees, close together, then strong trunks, forming a thick dark forest whose soil is a chaos of limestone blocks. Overloaded in winter by snow, beaten all the year round by fierce gusts of the Mistral, many are branchless, twisted into strange shapes, or even prostrate. An hour or more was passed in traversing the wooded zone, which, seen from a distance, looked like a black girdle on the sides of the mountain. Now again the beeches became stunted and scattered; we had reached their upper limit, and, despite the sorrel, all were right glad to come to the spot chosen for our halt and breakfast.
We were at the fountain of La Grave, a slender thread of water caught, as it issues from the ground, in a line of long troughs made of beech trunks, where the mountain shepherds water their flocks. The temperature of the spring was 7 degrees Cent.—a freshness inestimable for us who came up from the sultry heat of the plain. The cloth was spread over a charming carpet of Alpine plants, among which glittered the thyme-leaved Paronychia, whose large thin bracts are like silver scales. The provisions are taken out of their bags, the bottles out of their bed of hay. On this side are the solid dishes, legs [[184]]of mutton stuffed with garlic, and piles of bread; there the insipid chickens, good to amuse one’s grinders when serious hunger has been appeased. Not far off, in a place of honour, are the Ventoux cheeses sprinkled with asses’ pepper, and hard by Arles sausages, whose pink flesh is marbled with squares of bacon and whole pepper. In this corner are green olives still dripping with pickle, and black ones seasoned with oil. In another are melons from Cavaillon, some white, some orange, to suit all tastes, and there a pot of anchovies which make a man drink hard and be tireless on the march, and finally the bottles, cooling in the icy water of a trough. Is nothing forgotten? Yes, we have not mentioned the crown of the feast, raw onions eaten with salt. Our two Parisians, for there are two among us, my fellow botanists, are at first taken somewhat aback by this decidedly bracing bill of fare. They will be the first, a little later, to break forth in its praise. All is ready. Let us to table! Then began one of those homeric meals which make an epoch in one’s life. The first mouthfuls have a touch of frenzy. Slices of leg of mutton and bread succeed one another with alarming rapidity. Each of us, without communicating his apprehensions, casts an anxious look on the provender, and says inwardly, “If we go on at this rate, will there be enough for this evening and to-morrow?” However, the craving abated: first we devoured silently, then we ate and talked; fears for the next day abated too; we did justice to him who ordered the bill of fare, and who, foreseeing our voracity, arranged to meet it worthily. Now came the time to appreciate the [[185]]provisions as connoisseurs; one praises the olives, stabbing them singly with the point of his knife; another lauds the anchovies as he cuts up the little yellow-ochre fish on his bread; a third speaks enthusiastically of the sausages; and one and all agree in praising the asses’-pepper cheeses, no bigger than the palm of one’s hand. Pipes and cigars are lighted, and we lie on our backs in the sun upon the grass.
After an hour’s rest it is, “Up! time presses; we must go on!” The guide and luggage were to go westward, along the wood, where there is a mule path. He will wait for us at Jas or Bâtiment, at the upper limit of the beeches, some 1550 metres above the sea. The Jas is a large stone, but capable of sheltering man and beast at night. We were to go upward to the crest which we should follow so as to reach the highest part more easily. After sunset we would go down to the Jas, where the guide would have long arrived; such was the plan proposed and adopted.
We have reached the crest. Southward extend, as far as eye can see, the comparatively easy slopes by which we ascended on the north. The scene is savagely grand, the mountain sometimes perpendicular, sometimes falling in frightfully steep terraces, little less than a precipice of 1500 metres. Throw a stone, and it never stops till, bound after bound, it reaches the valley where one can see the bed of the Toulourenc wind like a ribbon. While my companions moved masses of rock and sent them rolling into the gulf that they might watch the terrible descent, I discovered under a big stone an old [[186]]acquaintance in the entomological world—Ammophila hirsuta, which I had always found isolated on banks along roads in the plain, while here, on the top of Mont Ventoux, were several hundreds heaped under the same shelter. I was trying to find the cause of this agglomeration, when the southern breeze, which had already made us anxious in the course of the morning, suddenly brought up a bevy of clouds melting into rain. Before we had noticed them a thick rain-fog wrapped us round, and we could not see a couple of paces before us. Most unluckily one of us, my excellent friend, Th. Delacour, had wandered away looking for Euphorbia saxatilis, one of the botanical curiosities of these heights. Making a speaking trumpet of our hands we all shouted together. No one replied. Our voices were lost in the dense fog and dull sound of the wind in the whirling mass of cloud. Well, since the wanderer cannot hear us we must seek him. In the darkness of the mist it was impossible to see one another two or three paces off, and I alone of the seven knew the locality. In order to leave no one behind, we took each other’s hands, I placing myself at the head of the line. For some minutes we played a game of blindman’s buff, which led to nothing. Doubtless, on seeing the clouds coming up, Delacour, well used to Ventoux, had taken advantage of the last gleams of light to hurry to the shelter of Jas. We also must hurry there, for already the rain was running down inside our clothes as well as outside, and our thin white trousers clung like a second skin. A grave difficulty met us: our turnings and goings and comings while we searched [[187]]had reduced me to the condition of one whose eyes have been bandaged, and has then been made to pirouette on his heels. I had lost the points of the compass, and no longer knew in the very least which was the southern side. I questioned one and another; opinions were divided and very uncertain. The conclusion was that not one of us could say which was the north and which the south. Never—no, never have I realised the value of the points of the compass as at that moment. All around was the unknown of gray cloudland; below we could just make out the beginning of a slope here or there, but which was the right one? We must make up our minds to descend, trusting to good fortune. If by ill luck we took the northern slope we risked breaking our necks over those precipices the very look of which had so inspired us with fear. Perhaps not one of us would survive. I went through some moments of acute perplexity.
“Let us stay here,” said the majority, and wait till the rain stops. “Bad advice,” said the others, and I was of the number; “bad advice. The rain may last a long while, and drenched as we are, at the first chill of night we shall freeze on the spot.” My worthy friend, Bernard Verlot, come from the Jardin des Plantes at Paris on purpose to ascend Mont Ventoux with me, showed an imperturbable calm, trusting to my prudence to get out of the scrape. I drew him a little on one side so as not to increase the panic of the others, and told him my terrible apprehensions. We held a council of two, and tried to supply the place of the magnetic needle by reasoning. “When the clouds came up,” [[188]]said I, “was it not from the south?” “Certainly from the south.” “And though the wind was hardly perceptible, the rain slanted slightly from south to north?” “Yes, I noticed that until I got bewildered. Is not that something to guide us? Let us descend on the side whence the rain comes.” “I had thought of that, but felt doubtful; the wind was too light to have a clearly defined direction. It might be a revolving current such as are produced on a mountain top surrounded by cloud. Nothing assures me that the first direction has been continuous, and that the current of air does not come from the north.” “And in that case?” “Ah! there is the crux! I have an idea! If the wind has not changed, we ought to be wettest on the left side, since the rain came on that side till we lost our bearings. If it has changed we must be pretty equally wet all round. We must feel and decide. Will that do?” “It will.” “And if I am mistaken?” “You will not be mistaken.”
In two words the matter was explained to our friends. Each felt himself, not outside, which would not have been sufficient, but under his innermost garment, and it was with unspeakable relief that I heard one and all announce the left side much wetter than the right. The wind had not changed. Very good, let us turn toward the rainy quarter. The chain was formed again, Verlot as rearguard, to leave no straggler behind. Before starting, I said once more to my friend, “Shall we risk it?” “Risk it; I follow you,” and we plunged into the awful unknown.
Twenty of those strides which one cannot moderate [[189]]on a steep slope, and all fear was over. Under our feet was not empty space but the longed-for ground covered with stones which gave way and rolled down behind us in streams. To one and all this rattle denoting terra firma was heavenly music. In a few minutes we reached the upper fringe of beeches. Here the gloom was yet deeper than on the mountain top; one had to stoop to the ground to see where one was setting foot. How in the midst of this darkness were we to find the Jas, buried in the depth of the wood? Two plants which always follow man, Good King Henry (Chenopodium Bonus Henricus) and the nettle, served me as a clue. I swept my free hand through the air as I walked, and at each sting I knew there was a nettle and an indication. Verlot, our rearguard, made similar lunges, and supplied the want of sight by the burning stings. Our companions showed no faith in this style of research. They talked of continuing the wild descent and of returning if necessary to Bedoin. More confident in the botanical instinct so keen in himself also, Verlot joined with me in persisting in our search, reassuring the most demoralised, and showing that it was possible by questioning plants with our hands to reach our destination in the darkness. They yielded to our reasoning, and shortly after, from one clump of nettles to another, the party arrived at the Jas.
Delacour was there, as well as the guide with the baggage, sheltered in good time from the rain. A blazing fire and change of garments soon restored our usual cheerfulness. A block of snow, brought from the neighbouring valley, was hung in a bag [[190]]before the hearth. A bottle caught the melted water. This would be our fountain for the evening meal. The night was spent on a bed of beech leaves, well crushed by our predecessors, and they were many. Who knows for how many years the mattress had never been renewed? Now it was a hard-beaten mass. The mission of those who could not sleep was to keep up the fire. Hands were not wanting to stir it, for the smoke, with no other exit than a large hole made by the partial falling in of the roof, filled the hut with an atmosphere made to smoke herrings. To get a mouthful of breathable air one must seek it with one’s nose nearly level with the ground. There was coughing; there was strong language, and stirring of the fire; but vain was every attempt to sleep. By 2 a.m. we were all on foot to climb the highest cone and behold the sunrise. The rain was over, the sky splendid, auguring a radiant day.